Review: "Rose Madder" by Stephen King

In an instant of mad courage, Rose Daniels walks out of the house she has shared with her abusive husband for fourteen years. Fearful, unprepared, and desperate, she sets off for a place where Norman will never find her, where she can be Rosie McClendon once again.

With the support of other battered women, Rosie finds her footing. For the first time since her teenage years, she is free: to have a cup of coffee with her friends, to earn her own money, to close the door of her own home at night... even to carefully examine the idea of love and romance, and its place in her future.

But if the world is kinder than Rosie knew, it is more dangerous as well. Norman, a police detective, takes his wife's abandonment of him as an insult--and he is determined to repay. Every day that Rosie becomes stronger, Norman gets closer to finding her.

***

Rose Madder by Stephen King (1996)

4.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 4/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: graphic descriptions of physical and sexual abuse; miscarriage; stalking; racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs; murder of women
Overall Response: Half affirming, half screaming heebie-jeebies... in other words, King at his best.

***

More Thoughts: Of all the Stephen King novels I've read, Rose Madder is hands-down the scariest. No monster in the King of Horror's supernatural bestiary is as terrifying as an abusive husband hunting down his fugitive wife. The reader doesn't have to use their imagination for this one: the horror comes from our own everyday world.

Review: "Memoirs of an Invisible Man"

When Nick Halloway accompanies Anne Epstein to the MicroMagnetics lab, he isn't interested in either their cutting-edge research or on the anti-nuclear protesters demonstrating outside: only in a day out with a beautiful woman. It is only by the merest chance Nick is still inside the lab when the bomb goes off. But instead of being obliterated, Nick--as well as a small spherical chunk of New Jersey--is rendered invisible.

The novelty of being undetectable to the human eye quickly wears off. Ogling women unseen is one thing, but he can hardly show up to work and draw a paycheck these days. Procuring food is no longer as simple as walking out of a grocery store, bags in hand. Cars clip him at seemingly empty crosswalks.  And, of course, the shadowy government agency investigating the MicroMagnetics accident is very interested in talking to him.

Perhaps Nick shouldn't have lit the invisible lab on fire when he fled. Or shot one of the investigators with the invisible gun, however accidentally. Colonel Jenkins is convinced that Nick must be captured, for public safety as well as scientific inquiry. And unlike the rest of New York City, Jenkins and his people know what they're (not) looking for.

***

Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F. Saint (1987)

3 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 3/5
Strength of Characterization: 2/5
Logic of Plot Development: 4/5
Evocation of Setting: 3/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 4/5
Resolution of Conflict: 3/5
Emotional Engagement: 1/5
Mental Engagement: 5/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: fail
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: animal cruelty, sexual assault, misogyny

Overall Response: A creative thriller, if you can stomach the loathsome protagonist.

***

More Thoughts: Although H.F. Saint's Memoirs of an Invisible Man is not a good book, and deserves no more than the three stars I grant it, I recommend it to those looking for a fun and unusual thriller for the summer.

Review: "All The Rage" by Courtney Summers

No one in Grebe believes Romy Grey about the sheriff's son. Her former crush on him, her willing presence at his house, her family history of alcoholism, all add up to one thing in the eyes of her peers: she is a liar who would say anything for attention. Telling the truth has cost Grey everything.

After the traditional high school lake party, Penny Young, Grey's onetime best friend, goes missing. The police searchers who look for her find Grey instead, wandering in a daze on a country road. Grey's rescue gives her peers a new reason to hate her: if the searchers hadn't split their forces to help her, they might have found Penny by now.

In the face of her classmates' resentment and the Grebe sheriff's accusations, Grey joins in the search for Penny. Despite everything, she thinks that Penny would have done the same for her.

***

All The Rage by Courtney Summers (2015)

4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 4/5
Logic of Plot Development: 4/5
Evocation of Setting: 4/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 4/5
Resolution of Conflict: 2/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: graphic description of rape, suicidal thinking, bullying, drug use, racism, misogyny, character deaths

Overall Response: I'm almost glad the ending flopped because otherwise this book was almost too intense to handle.

***

More Thoughts: Generally, I don't like talking about books by comparing them to other books, but I can't discuss Courtney Summers' All The Rage without bringing up Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.

Review: "The Girls of No Return" by Erin Saldin

Lida has nothing in common with the other girls at the Alice Marshall School for Girls, the camp where troubled teens are sent to resolve their problems with spirit-enhancing nature hikes. Their wounds are superficial and their stories of woe too rehearsed, too tidy, to be genuine. She won't tell them so, of course. Lida won't say anything at all. 

Her infatuation with an elegant new girl draws her out of her silence, and puts her in the line of fire. The camp's resident hooligan, Boone, is as offended by Gia's prideful grace as Lida is enchanted by it. Rumors fly about Boone's murderous temper. As Boone and Gia's rivalry builds to violence, though, Boone offers Lida her friendship--a dangerous gift that Lida is afraid to reject.

The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin (2012)

4.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: violence, description of self-injury

Overall Response: Brrrrrrrr.

***

More Thoughts (But First, An Aside): 

My friend Della just launched her own book blog, The Gorgonist, which you should visit at once. In one of her inaugural posts, she produced a book rec for every one of Taylor Swift's recent hits. I promptly put a half-dozen of them on hold, because Della likes fun books. (On the other hand, Della is also responsible for me reading Code Name Verity, and for that I may never forgive her.)

The book which Della associated with the song "Bad Blood" settled right down into that carved-out hollow within my heart where wilderness adventure stories live. Erin Saldin's The Girls of No Return, picks up the torch dropped by Hatchet, Downriver and My Side Of The Mountain. Then it tosses that torch into the puddle of gasoline that is mental health and queer issues. It's everything that The Miseducation of Cameron Post failed to be. Reading The Girls of No Return was like having a nightmare, but waking refreshed and ready to face the day.

Review: "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn

Police reporter Camille Preaker would rather die than return to her troubled mother's house. But a string of murders in little Wind Gap has caught the attention of the struggling Chicago paper where she works. Her boss is convinced this will be the big break Camille--and his paper--needs. Against her better judgment, she follows the story home to a house that hasn't been on speaking terms with the truth for a long, long time.

Everyone says that Wind Gap is a tranquil, pleasant place. Camille, with scars on her arms and a dead sister of her own in the ground, remembers differently. Likewise, everyone says that the two missing children were innocent angels taken before their time. The ugly truth will shatter the polite, agreed-upon fictions of the town--if Camille doesn't self-destruct before putting the words on paper.

***

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006)

5 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: murder, drug use, child sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, medical abuse, graphic imagery

Overall Response: I wonder if Gillian Flynn stole Jodi Picoult's ability to write an ending, because Flynn's are good enough for two novelists.

***

More Thoughts: Blockbuster hit Gone Girl isn't author Gillian Flynn's only triumph. Sharp Objects, her 2006 debut, is a masterpiece all its own. Forgive me if I refer back to the former frequently as I review the latter.

Review: "If I Fall, If I Die" by Michael Christie

Diane Cardiel used to be an acclaimed filmmaker, but now she is a hermit, imprisoned in her own house by her severe anxiety. Her young son Will sees himself as her protector, the one who makes the phone calls and answers the door for the grocery deliveryman. But even Will won't set foot outside. The world has myriad ways to destroy a small, fragile human body, as Diane well knows.

When Will not only steps outside, but returns unharmed, his small world is shattered.

As Will strains against the leash of his mother's neuroses, Diane's fear worsens. The industrial squalor of Thunder Bay has already stolen the rest of her family. And Will's ravenous, unsuspicious curiosity about the world beyond the walls of their house is leading him into danger.

***

If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie (2015)

3 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 3/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 2/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 2/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 2/5
Memorability: 3/5
Bechdel Test: fail
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: anti-Native racism, gang violence, sexual language

Overall Response: Forget Will's generic coming-of-age, tell me more about Diane!

***

More Thoughts: I have rarely seen mainstream popular literature deal in any depth with mental illness, especially not something so unglamorous as anxiety. If I Fall, If I Die, Michael Christie's novel about a mother and child and the long-reaching effects of the disorder, is both vivid and humane in its portrayal. 

And the plot itself is almost memorable!

Review: "House of Echoes" by Brendan Duffy

Turning The Crofts into a bed-and-breakfast is supposed to be a break for the Tierneys. Ben plans to work on his new novel in the rural stillness, while Caroline buries her struggles with bipolar disorder in renovating the historic estate and developing her culinary repertoire. Their older son, Charlie, spends hours roaming the woods of upstate New York, where there are no urban bullies to torment him.

But the promise of a new start eludes them at every turn. So does the hope of peace. 

The Crofts has too many dead animals to be explained away by coyote activity, and the village of Swannhaven has an unreal number of disasters in its few centuries of history. While Ben abandons his book in favor of a new project--researching Swannhaven--Caroline's paranoia convinces her that her own husband is a stranger. And Charlie claims he isn't alone when he plays in the woods all day. 

*** 

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Mexican Eskimo" by Anker Frankoni

This review appears before your eyes, dear reader, only after a lengthy ethical dilemma on the part of your resident grump.  Namely: is it wrong to accept a free book for promotion purposes, and then utterly trash it in a review? Or is it more wrong to withhold my thoughts on the book, and spare someone else the unpleasant experience of reading it?

My wise friend, Mac, pointed out that if accepting promotional copies of books means that one must only give them good reviews, then all an author would have to do to prevent bad press is to send a promotional copy to every reviewer. ("Ha!  You cannot give me an honest review now! Mwahahahahaha!”)

As the book in question--Mexican Eskimo by Anker Frankoni--is a new release by a debut author, reviews are thin on the ground. None of them so far mention the issues I had with the book. (Whether Mexican Eskimo is fiction or memoir adds an additional complication to reviewing it. Certain criticisms can be leveled at fiction, which cannot be handed out the same way when it is the author's own life being analyzed. Ask me sometime what happened at the beginning of my third writing course.)

In the end, I feel obliged to warn readers that the way that the book is described is... not technically false, but seriously misleading. As much as I empathize with Frankoni, as someone who hopes to publish her own books down the road, I write reviews for readers, not for authors.

And this is "Book Grumps," after all. It would be a betrayal of the crankiness promised in the domain name if I were to pander to terrible fiction at this point.

That's enough of a preface, I suppose.

*** 

1 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" by Stephen King

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland only stepped off the hiking trail for a moment, just to get away from the argument between her divorced mother and her embittered older brother. That moment is enough, though, for her to lose her way back. The supposed shortcut Trisha takes leads her off into the dense wilderness of the northern Appalachian Trail.

Hours of uneasy wandering turn into days. As Trisha's hunger and her injuries mount, she finds comfort in listening to the radio, where ballplayer Tom Gordon's victories seem to predict her own rescue. But the lost girl begins to believe that she is not alone in the woods. Something is accompanying her, leaving her grisly calling cards, as if to say that she is not only lost... she is hunted.

***

3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing" by Mira Jacob

The second version of the cover is jaw-droppingly
beautiful, like the book itself.

Amina Eapen tries not to go home too often. She finds her immigrant parents difficult--too much at odds with her own American dreams, too eager to set her up with nice young men from other Indian families, too hobbled by the memory of her brother's death.

When she hears that her father is hallucinating ghosts, however, Amina knows she has to go.

Amina's trip home raises a flurry of her own memories. Of her family's last fateful visit to India, when her grandmother's angry love for her emigrant son drives him into exile; of the bizarre narcolepsy her genius brother experienced in his teenage years that led to his death; of photograph of the bridge-jumper which both made Amina's career and drove her away from photojournalism forever, afraid of her own instinct for witnessing ruin.

This unwilling homecoming digs up all the buried wounds which the Eapens have kept hidden for years. But while her father's condition worsens, there remains the hope that they may lay these ghosts to rest at last.

***

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" by Joanne Greenberg

Against their better judgment, a wealthy Jewish family delivers their schizophrenic sixteen-year-old daughter to a mental institution for treatment. Where the Blau family sees terror and depravity, Deborah herself sees a refuge--proof at last that she is as sick as she has always known herself to be, and the freedom to tell the truth.

Dr. Fried, Deborah's psychologist, is not scared by Deborah's caustic wit or the bizarre symptoms which frightened her family into committing her. She believes that Deborah has the strength to secure her own rescue from her illness.

But Deborah is fighting an enemy the doctors cannot see: the imaginary world of Yr, which used to be her refuge from cruel reality and is now her prison. The cruel gods of Yr are unwilling to let their captive go free, and every step Deborah takes toward health is countered by their punishments, erasing the real world she is not entirely convinced she wants to rejoin at all.

***

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer

When the asteroid collision shifted the moon's orbit, Miranda thought it was no big deal. But the very next day, her mother pulls her out of school to hoard all the food they can carry out of the supermarket. Miranda thinks she is overreacting. Things can't be that bad--can they?

Instead of cute boys and test scores, she begins to worry about what they will do when the fuel runs out, or what has happened to her father, out of touch with satellites down and electrical power unavailable. Day by day, her world becomes emptier, hungrier, and smaller. The world she knew is gone forever.

The end of the world is not a single moment, but a lifetime... one which may be very short after all.

*** 

  3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Bonus Review: Karen Russell's Short Story Anthologies

I had so much fun reviewing Karen Russell's Swamplandia! that I picked up both of her short story anthologies: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Over the weekend, I tore through them both. As long as I can spend this summer lying by the pool with good books like these, I won't complain about the heat.

Russell is climbing swiftly in the ranks of my most esteemed modern writers. She has a thoroughly unique viewpoint on both the everyday and the paranormal, one which at times even reverses the two. At the same time, her writing is so grounded in earthy and unvarnished settings that the reader never senses when their feet have left the ground. There is no need to suspend disbelief when reading her tales. Russell does it for you. It's quite the optical illusion.

Most importantly, against these surreal stages--both the ones that exist in our own world, however unfamiliar they are to the reader, and the ones that require a little loosening of the seatbelt of reality--Russell sets very simple, very true characters. They grip the reader's heart with a familiar and possessive hand.

Reading through both of these anthologies at such a fast clip, I did notice a recurring weakness when it comes to endings. Over and over, Russell seems to conclude the tale five minutes too soon, stopping on a point that feels neither cliffhangerish nor resolved. It may be intentional, but I would love to see the author follow through at least once.

Every anthology has a few duds, but Russell knocks it out of the park with so many of these tales that I recommend both books as highly as Swamplandia! itself. I look forward to her other works.

Review: "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell

Once upon a time, Hilola Bigtree, the Swamp Centaur, wrestled alligators before cheering crowds at Swamplandia!, the Bigtrees' family-run theme park. Her daughter Ava wanted nothing more than to be just like her. But Hilola is dead and the tourists no longer flock to the island, preferring the gimcrack attractions on the mainland. Swamplandia!, like surviving Bigtrees, is abandoned.

While Chief Bigtree vanishes for days on end--supposedly raising money to save Swamplandia!--his children are left to fend for themselves. The traitor Kiwi runs away, working at a rival hell-themed water park to earn a normal life for himself and his sisters. Dreamy Osceola holds seances, talking first to her mother and then to a succession of ghostly "boyfriends." When one proposes to her, Ossie boards a derelict ship she believes will drift to the Underworld, leaving Ava behind.

Guided by the mysterious Bird Man, Ava plunges into the treacherous labyrinth of the Everglades, searching for Ossie. In the wake of Hilola's death, someone has to save Swamplandia! and the Bigtrees, even if that someone is the youngest of them all.

***

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Feed" by Mira Grant

The zombie apocalypse has come--and stayed. Twenty-five years after the initial outbreak of the virus, the infected continue to shuffle hungrily after warm flesh. Worse, every single living person is a carrier for the dormant virus, which could claim them at any time.

Even in the face of the undead, however, life goes on. Bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are selected to cover the presidential campaign of Peter Ryman, the first candidate to have been a teenager during the first horrifying outbreak.  Few have trusted the official media since censoring and misinformation led to the (un)deaths of thirty-two percent of the population--leaving bloggers in the position of viral truth-tellers for the world. Ryman hopes the presence of the Mason team will give his campaign the legitimacy and the popular support he needs.

Georgia and Shaun, poster children of the apocalypse generation, are prepared for cross-country travel through a zombie-filled wasteland. But even the living dead aren't as lethal as ordinary humans with an agenda. Political schemes escalate from sabotage, to murder, to biological terrorism. The Masons were hired to tell the world the truth--and someone doesn't want it told.

*** 

  4 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by Emily M. Danforth

The day that Cameron Post kisses a girl for the first time, her parents die in a car accident.

While every one of her peers in tiny Miles City, Montana struggles with romance, rebellion, and boredom, her orphan status--and her infatuation with her female friends--sets Cameron apart. She is convinced that God took her parents away to punish her for her sinful ways, but she can't stop thinking about beautiful, graceful Coley.

It's only a matter of time until someone realizes that the heart Cameron wears on her sleeve is rainbow-hued--and when they do, they will set out to fix her.

*** 

  2 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Storyteller" by Jodi Picoult

The nocturnal hours of her profession suit baker Sage Singer. In darkness and isolation, she nurses her pain over her mother's death, killed in the same car accident which disfigured Sage's face.

In her grief support group, Sage bonds with elderly widower Josef Weber. But her new friend discloses a terrible secret: he was a member of the SS, overseeing a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Josef believes Sage's Jewish ancestry grants her the authority to forgive him--and the right to assist in his suicide plan.

Sage is no stranger to guilt and despair, but Josef's confession and its accompanying plea horrify her. She is convinced to endure the truth by Nazi hunter Leo Stein; by her own grandmother, a survivor of the camps; and by her lingering compassion for Josef. For the sake of the Holocaust's victims, she must see Josef's story to its end--no matter what skeletons they unearth along the way.

*** 

  3.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Guest Review: "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn (Revisited)

 My friend Traci of Traci J. Brooks Studios took exception to my review of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. She took away a very different message from the book than I did. I invited her to write her own review, which she has graciously permitted me to post here for you, dear reader.

*** 
 A Portrait of Marriage
***

This is not a book review of the New York Times Bestseller by Gillian Flynn. If you haven’t read the book, it’s going to get spoiled for you – and I’d hate to do that, because it truly is a magnificent piece of writing. You have been warned.

What this entry is, is catharsis. This book annihilated me. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that not only kept me twisting as a reader, but sucker-punched me in the emotional gut. I’ve needed to talk about this book since I finished it at breakfast many months ago, absolutely exhausted from the crazy ride on which it took me.

What I want people to understand, is that while this book is fantastical (I’m sure psychopaths like Amy exist, but the events in this book are pretty extreme), the elements of marriage as it portrays it are not. It’s temping to write off all of Amy’s fake diary as just that, when we as a reader feel duped and a little stupid for believing her tale – but don’t. This book paints a horrifying portrait of a marriage, brushstrokes of embarrassing emotion admissions and all too real truth. And being that I am myself committed to a wonderful man in that same union, I didn’t even have to search for similarities in our life to Nick and Amy’s… they were there before I even tried to find them.

That’s enough to turn your stomach, right there.

These are two awful people. Flynn crafted a man and a woman so real in their flaws, I cringe to think they exist. But I know they do. Pieces of them exist in every single marriage out there. I am Amy. My husband is Nick.

It starts so innocently. Amy’s entry about first meeting Nick rings true to me especially, because I met my husband at a party. And her description of being “fat with love” is so perfect. She writes that she has become a wife, a bore, that she finds chances just to say his name out loud. It is exactly how every love story begins! Flynn does a spectacular job on describing what it feels like to fall in love, to find your soulmate.

She does an even more spectacular job of detailing its unraveling. Flynn nails how simply the end begins. A forgotten anniversary. Not apologizing. Resentment. How Amy/I would do something meant to be nice for Nick/JD and he would take it the wrong way. How Amy/I would nag about something like laundry. How Amy’s/my ego would get in the way of admitting what I really wanted to Nick/JD. It’s a slow, magnificent catastrophe that I swear I have experienced only a year, a few months, a week ago in my own life. The walls have crumbled before you even knew there were cracks.

But Gone Girl is not the end all, be all of marriages, thank God. While almost every one of Amy’s fictional scenarios easily could happen (and have) in my own life – that is not the way every marriage’s story ends. Ulitmately, the takeaway from this book is that marriage is not a game where the spouses try to outwit each other. It can’t be, or it will be miserable like the ending of Gone Girl. Marriage, for all it’s horrible parts, is also filled with moments of utter ardor – and we so easily forget about them in the daily grind.

I hope that in writing this entry, I will remember in crafting my own metaphorical and literal diary of being a newlywed, to remember the great times, just as much as the bad, and also to remember in marriage, I am not the protagonist. We are the protagonist, and where one fails, so does the other. That’s where Gone Girl gets it wrong – or perhaps, gets it right. One spouse in a marriage cannot disappear and the marriage still survive. Marriage creates a bond so intimate and intricate, that you can’t have one without the other. Gone Girl teaches its readers that marriage is for richer or pooer, sickness and in health, til death do you part.

Hopefully I never have to learn it Amy’s way.  

 
Traci J. Brooks Studios
Posted with permission.

Review: "Locked Inside" by Nancy Werlin

The death of her mother, the famous singer-writer Skye, has left Marnie immensely wealthy--and intensely alone. She drifts through the ritzy private school selected for her, avoiding friendships and disappointing her guardians, waiting until the day she is 18 and can choose her own life. While she waits, she loses herself in the digital world of Paliopolis, the only place where she feels free.

Even if Marnie tries to ignore the world, though, the world has not ignored her. As the Halsett campus empties for spring break, Marnie is kidnapped. Her kidnapper has no interest in ransom--only in Marnie Skyedottir herself.

As isolated as she has kept herself, no hope of rescue is forthcoming. If Marnie will ever be set free, she will have to win her freedom herself.

*** 

  3 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell

 When Cath leaves home for her first year of college, she's not ready for change. She already has everything that she needs: a loving father, a twin to be her guaranteed best friend, and twenty thousand hits on her fanfiction about the popular Simon Snow series.

But Wren doesn't want to be Cath's other half anymore. For the first time in her life, Cath is alone, living among strangers. She doesn't know where the dining hall is. Her new roommate is too loud, too pushy, too attractive. Her professors think fanfiction is plagiarism.

Not to mention the presence of boys--ones made of flesh and blood rather than paper and ink. Boys in her classes, boys in her room, boys she can't control with a few taps on a keyboard.

When will Cath have time to finish her fanfiction with all these changes getting in the way?

***   2.5 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut)

***